The Lusitania Murders (17 page)

His eyes frowned, his mouth smiled. “To get into my confidence, and then my briefcase? Other than supper with my friends last night, in that Broadway show of a dining room, I’ve been entrenched in this suite, reading plays—I devour manuscripts like chocolates.”

“What about last night? At dinner?”

He sipped his ginger ale and thought that over. “Well, that fellow Williamson . . . Vanderbilt’s friend . . . said he’d like a meeting with me.”

“Did he say why?”

“Yes—he’s an art dealer. Vanderbilt is a client—apparently, Williamson recommends buying certain paintings as an investment, I take it. Lives mostly in Paris, I believe.”

I jotted this down; Williamson was on our docket anyway—one of that elite half dozen who’d received threatening telegrams and been on Klaus’s list.

As we took our leave, Frohman apologized for not seeing us to the door, and again reminded Miss Vance—as if a reminder were necessary—to contact him for theatrical work.

“And I intend not to be an antisocial animal for this entire trip,” he said, with a salute of his ginger ale glass. “I’m having a party Thursday evening—and you are both invited.”

We accepted his invitation, and thanked him for his hospitality.

In the hall, Miss Vance was glowing from the reception she had received. But I reminded her that, for now at least, she was more detective than actress.

The interview with George Kessler—the so-called “Champagne King”—would vary from the previous two in a significant way: Kessler had requested I meet him in that exclusively male haunt, the ‘First-Class Smoking Room.’ Miss Vance took the opportunity to return to the side of Madame DePage, who was in the ‘Reading-and-Writing room’ with her new friend, Dr. Houghton—someone we were interested in knowing more about, anyway.

The smoking room was aft on the Boat Deck, a large
*
chamber dominated by an enormous ornate wrought-iron skylight with leaded glass and inset panels. Walnut paneling framed furniture of the Queen Anne period—sofas, easy chairs, settees, writing desks and marble-topped tables—and the red carpeting and upholstery, in concert with the natural wood tones, created a rich masculine warmth at odds with the white and gold of so much of the rest of the ship.

The air was a smorgasbord of cigar smoke, making a cigarette man like myself feel something of a piker—and a pauper. This was, after all, the bastion of rail barons, shipping magnates, international publishers and millionaire businessmen.

George Kessler didn’t know me, but I recognized him—his bushy black beard was hard to miss. He was seated
in one of two angled easy chairs facing an elaborate, unlighted fireplace, with a brown valise tucked under (and held in place by) his legs. A cigar smaller than a pool cue in the fingers of his left hand, the Canadian wine magnate was wearing a three-piece dark gray suit with lighter gray pinstripes, and reading an issue of
The Philistine
, the digest-sized magazine published (and largely written) by Elbert Hubbard.

I approached, introduced myself, he did not get up, we shook hands and I took the other easy chair.

“Are you a subscriber to that magazine?” I asked him.

“Hell no,” Kessler said, with gruff good humor. “That eccentric ninny is passing these out all over the ship . . . though I must say he gives Kaiser Bill the devil in this article.”

“You’re no fan of the Germans?”

“I am not. Some men make money off wars, but for me it’s a goddamned nuisance—restricts my travel, plays hell with my ability to entertain my friends and business associates.”

“That’s partly why I wanted to interview you, sir,” I said, getting Mr. McClure’s work out of the way. “These famous ‘bashes’ of yours. . . .”

For perhaps ten minutes the outgoing businessman regaled me with tales of the extravagant dinners and parties—how he had once hired London’s best carpenters, scenery painters and electricians to turn the Savoy Hotel’s courtyard into a corner of Venice . . . including flooding it and serving dinner in a giant white gondola. At another event a mammoth cake was conveyed to guests on the back of a circus elephant, while Caruso sang. At yet another do (the Savoy again), he turned the garden into a
faux North Pole, complete with silver-tissue icebergs and fields of plastic snow.

I had written all of this down, on the questionable assumption that any of the
News
’s readers would care, when Kessler paused to relight his cigar, which had gone out during his blatherings. As he did, he must have taken a closer look at me, because he blurted that he’d seen me earlier.

“Is that right?” I said.

“Yes! You were giving Anderson a bit of a bad time, on deck, and God bless you for it—I saw that pitiful excuse for a lifeboat drill! Ye gods, what a joke.”

“It’s less than reassuring, all right.”

He shook his head and the thicket of black beard bounced. “These are wartime conditions—bunch of damned ostriches, heads in the sand. You know, I complained directly to Captain Turner.”

“You did?”

“I did—the daft old bastard. I went right to his day cabin and bearded the lion in his den—said, ‘I think it would be an excellent idea if each passenger was given a ticket listing the number of the lifeboat he’s to make for.’ ”

“How did Turner take it?”

“He just looked at me—like a shaved walrus. I said, ‘You know, Captain—just in case anything
untoward
happens.’ Finally he told me Cunard had already considered this idea—it had come up after the
Titanic
disaster! But it was rejected as too impractical.”

“I would imagine this response disappointed you.”

“It did, and I told the old boy so! And he just replied that he did not have the authority to act on my advice—even if he wanted to! Bugger him, I say.”

How I wished this could go into my
News
articles. . . .

“Do you know how Turner spends his time?” Kessler asked.

“Frankly, no.”

“Tying fancy nautical knots, to impress his officers! Challenges ’em to top him.
They
think he’s a fool, too. . . . There are women and children on this ship, goddamnit! Have you seen how many tykes are aboard?”

I, of course, had; but somehow I felt Kessler’s prime concern was self-preservation.

“I have the feeling,” I said, “that steamer travel does not suit your temperament.”

“You’re correct, sir—no voyage is too short for me. I get restless—even with that sea air and walks on deck, I have a cooped-up feeling. But it has its positive side—I’ve had numerous good business ideas; sometimes I feel my mind is whirling with new ways to make more money.”

“And to spend it?” I said, with a smile. “Maybe turn the Savoy into the Taj Mahal?”

“Hell of an idea,” he said. But his impatience even extended to me, and this interview. “Well, is that it? Did I give you what you needed? You got the spelling right?”

I told him the interview was over, and that I did indeed have the correct spelling of his name; but that I would like a few more minutes with him. He cooperated, and I explained about Miss Vance—whom he remembered from seeing her on deck with me (“Fine-looking woman!”)—and our fears that a thievery ring might be aboard.

At mention of that, his face turned white. “It’s a good thing I carry a gun,” he said.

“Why is that, sir?”

He leaned closer. “I can speak only in strictest confidence. I would want this repeated only to the Pinkerton agent—so that she might help in a preventative manner.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded.

He stroked the nest of beard. “You might consider me as eccentric as that Hubbard character, in my own way.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Well. . . . I am of the belief that a man should not leave his possessions out of his sight.” He tapped the brown valise over which his legs rested. “I have some transactions in mind, in London, that may demand fast financing.”

So the valise must have contained a sizable quantity of cash—much as Frohman’s briefcase bulged with fifty thousand dollars.

“I have two million in stocks and securities,” Kessler said. “Having it so close by . . . well, it’s much safer this way, don’t you think?”

And he thought Captain Turner was a fool. . . .

ELEVEN
Ham Seasoned with Sage

Late that afternoon I again joined forces with Miss Vance. We met in the Reading-and-Writing Room (which was smaller
*
than the gentlemen’s smoking lounge), a mostly female preserve offering rose-color carpeting that harmonized soothingly with walls panelled in cream-and-gray silk brocade, with finely carved pilasters and moldings. The etched-glass windows boasted embroidered valances and curtains of silk tabouret, and the inlaid mahogany furnishings included settees, easy chairs and writing chairs upholstered in the same rich silk, with a vast mahogany-and-glass book-crammed bookcase that consumed an entire wall. In what better setting could one hope to jot off a note on impressive
Lusitania
stationery?

I had just completed my interview with George Kessler, while Miss Vance—here in the reading room—had sat
chatting with Madame DePage and her friend Dr. Houghton.

“Houghton seems quite innocent,” she said, beside me on a small sofa. Madame DePage and Dr. Houghton had departed to prepare for the first evening dinner sitting.

I frowned. “But they hadn’t met prior to this trip . . . he sought her out, she said. . . .”

“Yes—they’d corresponded, however, and were in that sense old acquaintances. They spoke in detail about the hospital in La Panne . . . went on and on about a nurse named Cavell, in Brussels, from whom madame hoped Dr. Houghton could arrange a pass through German lines.”

“That seems unlikely.”

Miss Vance shrugged. “So Dr. Houghton told her—but madame naively clung to her belief that doctors and nurses ‘transcend the national and the politic of war.’ ”

“Good luck to her with that view.”

With a lifted eyebrow, Miss Vance said, “There well may be, as you suspect, a shipboard romance between them . . . madame is a passionate woman, in every respect . . . but if Houghton is not the genuine article, he’s a masterful impostor.”

“Still, you
will
check on him, with your New York office, I trust.”

“Oh yes. And by Tuesday we should have preliminary reports on those crew members, Williams and Leach, as well . . . And what did you gather from your conversation with the Champagne King?”

I sighed, leaned back on the comfortable sofa. “Well, he’s a loudmouth who likes to impress others by throwing his money around.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more than the two million dollars in stocks and bonds in that bag of his.”

Miss Vance’s eyes showed white all round. “Do tell! Well, his technique is working—I
am
impressed.”

I gave her the details, such as they were.

She shook her head. “What a foolish ass . . .”

“Nonetheless, the purpose of those names in the stowaway’s shoe becomes clear—it seems unlikely it’s potential assassination targets. Rather, robbery victims.”

Nodding, she said, “That would seem the common denominator—Madame DePage has her war relief funds, Frohman his money to buy new properties in London, and this oaf Kessler has his stocks and bonds in hand—to keep them ‘safe.’ ”

I chuckled. “As if all this food weren’t enough, the
Lucy
is a virtual brigands’ buffet! Courtesy of a bunch of first-class idiots with their first-class purses full.”

“And what of the Sage of East Aurora?”

She was nodding toward Elbert Hubbard, who sat at a handsome writing table complete with built-in mercury gilt lamp, near another such desk, at which his wife, Alice, perched. Both were intently applying ink to paper, bathed in afternoon sunlight filtering down through the leaded-glass dome almost directly above them.

“Well, it’s time for our appointment,” I said. “Shall we find out?”

Within minutes, introductions had been made, and we repaired to a pair of adjacent couches, Miss Vance next to me, with Hubbard at my left, his wife seated next to him. Plain but not unattractive people, the pair’s shared shoulder-length hairstyle created a peculiar visual bond. Alice Hubbard wore a simple, unpretentious afternoon dress of blue serge. Hubbard wore a loose-fitting blue
jacket that had certainly once been new, though perhaps not in this century; underneath was a white shirt and an oversize, floppy darker blue velvet tie, and on the floor next to him was a battered briefcase. . . .

Another briefcase! Was there a million dollars in it, I wondered, or perhaps several bags of diamonds? That would have fitted the trend, all right—although in this case, the “treasure” in that battered bag was more likely page after scribbled page of words of wisdom from the aphorism-spouting “homely philosopher.”

I knew quite a bit about Hubbard already, having written several humorously critical articles about him (in one of which I’d termed him “the P.T. Barnum of the arts”). His career as an author—he was sort of a Mark Twain without the wit or storytelling ability—had not begun until his mid-thirties. A poor boy who’d quit high school to work as a travelling salesman, he had sold soap door-to-door, educating himself by devouring books in the dim light of dingy hotel rooms.

No one could deny that Hubbard had a gift for sales—had he not been so sincere about his beliefs, he would have made a wonderful confidence man. He had risen to a partnership in that soap company, which his admittedly clever merchandising ideas had turned into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. At the height of this success he walked out to enroll in college!

He chose Harvard, no less, where his writing teachers looked at his prose and advised a return to the soap business. Indignant, Hubbard left the campus, returned to his farm home in small East Aurora, New York, and began submitting his work to Manhattan publishers, who also knew soap when they smelled it.

Finally, finding no takers for his brilliance in prose,
Hubbard began to self-publish his magazine,
The Philistine
, a periodical whose homely little anecdotes and ham-on-wry quips attracted a following. His antiwar article “A Message to Garcia” caught fire and sold forty million copies, making him famous . . . and rich.